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Journal of Happiness Studies

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01-06-2024 | Research Paper

Perceived Calling Enablement: Achieving Positive Work Outcomes Through Unanswered Calling

Authors: Ju Young Lee, Viva Nsair, Boram Do

Published in: Journal of Happiness Studies | Issue 5/2024

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Abstract

Despite the various positive outcomes of perceived calling fulfillment at work that previous scholars have suggested, little effort has been made to understand employees who have a calling but do not identify it with their current work. By integrating self-determination theory into the calling literature, we explore how having a calling outside of one’s workplace can still lead individuals to connect strongly with their work through a mechanism that we term perceived calling enablement. Through an initial qualitative study, we identify four ways through which employees perceive their work as a calling enabler: as a source of (1) financial resources, (2) time flexibility, (3) skill development and learning, and (4) social networks/connections that allow people to pursue their callings. Then, in a series of quantitative survey studies, we developed a measure of perceived calling enablement that reflects these four dimensions and showed that perceived calling enablement facilitated work attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, willingness to sacrifice, and job crafting.

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We also tested an alternative model in which we did not specify a perceived calling enablement higher-order construct. This model showed a worse fit to the data than when we did specify a higher-order construct of perceived calling enablement (χ²[698] = 1606.84; RMSEA = 0.07; CFI = 0.91; TLI = 0.90; χ²diff[10] = 398.51, p < 0.01).

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Title: Perceived Calling Enablement: Achieving Positive Work Outcomes Through Unanswered Calling
Authors: Ju Young Lee
Viva Nsair
Boram Do
Publication date: 01-06-2024
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Journal of Happiness Studies / Issue 5/2024
Print ISSN: 1389-4978
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7780
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00762-7

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